


one thousand eight hundred and twenty five

by cara_melli



Category: Atta - Fandom, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Cabin AU, Domestic Fluff, F/M, a way to cope from the latest chapter, angst with fluff, eremika is canon fight me, isayama you sneaky devil, spoilers for ch138, spoilers for the manga in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:14:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29961456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cara_melli/pseuds/cara_melli
Summary: they abandoned everything, just for some semblance of peace. in four years they were going to make up for lost time and shut out the world. even if the guilt ate away at them.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 18
Kudos: 131





	one thousand eight hundred and twenty five

He asked her the question. That question. With the implication she’d never thought she’d hear from him. She accepted, somewhere along the way, that he wouldn’t ever act on or maybe even notice how she felt. She made peace with it, even if it made her heart sting a few times a day.

And now, here he is, eyes desperate and seeking for something. The answer to what he just asked her, lifetimes and miniscule seconds ago.

Family or love.

The sky seems to darken and the stars brighten, and she felt them mocking how obviously heated her face must have been. In the middle of a war- a war that could cost them and many she knew their life, she would never think a day like this would ever come.

“Family.” She almost convinced herself to say. Family, because right now she didn’t feel ready yet. Family, because then she could avoid the truth just a bit longer. Family so then he wouldn’t think of her any less. He wouldn’t, would he?

But then she thought back, back back. Down into the deepest archives of her memory where the books were dusty, cobweb ridden and abandoned with her darkest memories. The deaths of many comrades. She thought of them, the dreams they hoped to achieve, their goals seperate from a life of chasing, avoiding and killing titans. She thought of the future they’d hope to live before getting killed.

She thought of Ymir and Historia, who never got to live together in the way they wanted to. They didn’t have an opportunity like this, and just as they were about to, one of them ended up dead.

The image of Eren, still and silent and dead on the ground bubbled up in her mind. 

“Because you saved me.” She said. Seconds passed and he opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t let him.

“Because you saved me... and everything after that.”

Eren breathed in a deep sigh through his nose, casting his gaze upwards. The emeralds in his eyes were swimming in waters she’d never seen on him before.

“This war,” He croaked, Adam’s apple bobbing. When the first tear fell he must’ve decided it was no use hiding it, so he looked back down again, and dead into her eyes. “It’s just a cycle. It’s a loop we’re stuck in where death is the only outcome and the person who dies the only changing variable.”

He clawed a hand through his hair. “It’s so hard.”

Carefully, she grabbed his wrist, and slowly, she let go, and smoothed the knot between his brows. 

He stared at her, green and hopeless. And then he took her hand in his and spoke again.

“Run away with me.”

The suggestion left her stunned, frozen like the hand he’d grabbed so gently. 

She felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. “What?”

“Runaway. With me.” He took a step back, sweeping his free hand in the air. “Away from all of this. There’s a place I know- an abandoned cabin in a valley near the outskirts of Marley.”

“Eren-“

“I-If we go now we could reach there in a day or two by train...” he said, looking down towards his feet and desperately clutching her hands.

She’s never seen him so...

“Mikasa,” he called, and she took a step towards him, closer than she’d ever be since they were ten, and cupped his cheek. His voice trembled. “I’m so tired...”

Desperate.

And then without thinking, she pressed her lips against his. 

She had her eyes shut tightly closed but she swore time went for so long the stars moved just a little bit.

Eren grabbed the back of her head, tangled his hands in her locks and pushed her closer. Mikasa thought, despite all of her strength, she could break into a million pieces right there and then. 

The war, the fighting, the violence. Marley, Paradis, titans and clans. They all blended into the same shade of black that the world around them turned into. Leaving only them. A space for two.

They pulled away, and ever so slowly- painfully slowly, Eren brought his hand back to hers again before smoothing it over her cheek.

‘It’s a dream,’ she thought. ‘This isn’t real.’ 

He took a step back, and she tentatively followed. Then another, another, and then they were running through the plains. Off to grab their things and dash to the nearest train station. Never to be seen by their friends again. Hands still intertwined.

—

Mikasa’s foot almost got caught on the stairs up to the platform of the train station, and Eren had to grab her hand and steady her before they rushed into the open doors of the train, found an empty compartment (there were many at this time of night) and collapsed in a heap of heavy limbs. Light luggage following after.

The train had begun to move seconds later, and Eren made a comment in between gasps that they were lucky. Apparently, this was the last train.

He talked more afterwards, but everything became a blur from there, and all she felt was the rock of the train against its tracks and Eren’s body, slowly leaning her head against his shoulders to sleep.

——

When she woke the world was whizzing by in a flurry of green and blue. It reminded her of the paint that shaped the portraits in the palace, the landscape ones that would decorate the halls.

Mikasa wouldn’t consider herself an artist or a critic, but every time she passed them she couldn’t help but take a moment to admire their beauty. And wonder possibly, where such a scene would be painted.

Somewhere like this, her mind answered. And she pushed herself off of whatever cushion she’d been leaning on in favour of pressing up against the glass of the compartment, and marvelling.

The sky was so blue and so incredibly clear, the trees were green and lush, each leaf like an individual stroke of a brush with its own bright highlights. The mountains beyond them were tall, strong and stoic. The flowered below them were dainty, soft and colourful.

It reminded her of home. Her old home, with her parents. They’d love this.

“I thought you’d like it,” a voice said behind her, and she jumped and whizzed around. 

Eren sat behind her, smiling softly. It only hit her then, like a gust of wind, that the soft cushion Mikasa was leaning on before had been him. “E-Eren,” she started, but didn’t know what else to say.

‘I must still be dreaming.’

He patted to the spot next to her, and she silently followed, occupying the cozy spot next beside him. She rubbed some sleep from her eyes, but her nerves may as well have been electrified. “What time is it?” She said.

He hummed, eyes admiring the view outside. “Nine, I think.” He looked up at the clock above the doorway, and nodded. “Nine thirty.”

“Oh,” she said, fiddling with the hems of her blazer. “Did you sleep at all?” 

“A bit.” Eren answered, and Mikasa knew he didn’t at all.

That calmed her nerves a little, and she rested her head against his shoulder. “Well, you should sleep a bit more.” He made a noise she couldn’t place, but she assumed it was some sort of acknowledgement. “It’ll relax you.”

“I’m going to get us some food.” Mikasa said, making her way towards the door and prying it ajar. Eren nodded, and she closed the door behind her. 

She didn’t have to look so far, having reached the end of the hallway and finding a lady with a breakfast trolley. Mikasa squinted and its contents.

“Our breakfast time was more than an hour ago, so apologies if majority of our stock has been already taken.” The woman said, smiling with some furrowed brows. Mikasa said it was fine and pointed to some toast, some small jam and butter containers, and two boxes of orange juice.

“You have a swell morning, dear.” The lady said, and the Ackerman offered a smile before retreating to the compartment. 

Eren still sat there, eyes awake yet half lidded. He widened them when she came in, as if surprised, then relaxed. “What did you get?”

“Some toast and juice. I think the toast is cold though.” She wrinkled her nose and passed him a slice, making sure to spread some jam and butter with the plastic knife she’d swiped before leaving the trolley.

“Food is food,” he said, uttering a ‘thank you,’ before taking a bite. “God, when was the last time we ate?”

Yesterday at noon. It was the time she’d given him some ice cream. Before he mentioned his fathers memories and the looming thought of titans and titan shifters and war threatened to surface into the conversation.

“I can’t remember.” She said, before taking her place next to him. They ate their breakfast quietly, munching on cold toast and odd tasting orange juice.

She heard Eren yawn beside her. “Do you want me to move?” She said, gesturing to the chair across from him so he could sleep more comfortably.

He shook his head, instead placing his empty juice box on the other seat, sitting back down again, and resting his head against her shoulder.

He fell asleep twenty five minutes afterwards.

———-

Hours later they’d reached their stop, at least according to Eren, and the two of them hopped of the train and tread along a dirt track where the trees began to thicken and the mountains start to push together more closer. Mikasa felt the cold steel of a blade she had hidden against her thigh and was strangely more aware of it than before.

This place seemed so secluded. If something were to happen to them, no one would ever know.

Eren walked in front of her, leading the way. He pressed on when they were met with a particular thick brush, and Mikasa winced as he saw him tear through it. Earning a couple of scratches along the way. “It’ll heal.” he said when he saw her faces

When he pulled the final branch away Mikasa got a perfect view of it. She lost her grip on her suitcase.

The cabin, perched atop a small sloping hill, was small, rustic and old. As she got closer she saw a wooden bench just outside the entrance of it, some abandoned flower beds, and a stump for cutting wood.

Mikasa couldn’t stop from covering her grin with her hands. It was so reminiscent of the one she, her father and mother used to live in. Or at least the closest thing she’d ever seen of it.

“How did you even find this place?” She breathed.

“Memories. I don’t remember who it was.” Some silence passed then, and then ever so slowly, his arms snaked around her waist.

Mikasa took it all in and failed. The valley, the trees, the distant sound of a stream. It was overwhelming.

“They must have lived a peaceful life.” She said, leaning into his touch. “This is just-“

“Is it bad?”

“No!” Mikasa slipped out of his grasp and turned to face him. “No it’s just... so perfect, I-“ she snuck a glance to the cabin once more. “It seems like something from another life. Like the place I’d go to if there were no titans...”

Eren breathed in a sigh and shut his eyes tight. When he opened them again the emeralds glimmered. “For now, there aren’t any.”

“What?”

“It’s just you and me. Until the moment where my four years are up.”

Mikasa felt her stomach twist and flip, the heat rising up from her neck to her cheeks.

‘I must be dreaming.’

Her head throbbed.

Eren stretched out his hand, his back turned and head angled low.

Mikasa smiled and took it. Even if she didn’t really believe if it was real or not. Maybe because she thought it wasn’t, she went along with it.

No. That was the exact reason.

**Author's Note:**

> hihihihi
> 
> I’ve finished this at 2am and i have school tomorrow so please forgive my laziness to correct any mistakes (I think I get the most inspired to write at night ;;).
> 
> anyway chapter 138 was a thing. consider this my coping mechanism lmfao.
> 
> LONG LIVE EREMIKA!!!
> 
> I hope this helped any post chapter sadness! :’)
> 
> -cara
> 
> ps; I’m probably gonna add another chapter or two. I’m that desperate for closure here LMAO


End file.
